The tale of Tacos Selene, deemed just one of the best taco joints on the Entrance Assortment by Denver Publish visitors, commences in a food stuff truck.
As Celene Rivera, the restaurant’s namesake, tells it, her dad and mom, Carmen and Enedino Gonzalez, immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and started off two enterprises: a painting enterprise and a foods truck. They parked the food truck at an AutoZone on Colfax Avenue in Aurora in which they swiftly became recognized for their authentic road tacos and menudo, a weekend-only specialty that continue to attracts enthusiasts who line up before the store opens just to get a bowl.
“People have usually used menudo as hangover food,” Rivera claimed. “We do the crimson chile sauce and then we have the solution of with or without hominy. We pair it with toasted bread, toasted bolillo. We can do tortillas, we major with onion, cilantro — whatsoever the client wishes to insert.”
In excess of the training course of their first 10 years in organization, the Gonzalezes tried to open a brick-and-mortar site – after in a grocery retail outlet and yet again in a space in Westminster, Rivera said — but the areas never very suit. By the time Rivera, the oldest of 3 Gonzalez little ones, went to college in 2010, she enrolled at a college in Arkansas with the expectation her parents would before long shut the truck and go there, too.
But in a twist of destiny, the Gonzalez family’s aspiration locale grew to become offered before long thereafter.
“This spot … on Sixth Avenue and Chambers, *(dad’s) constantly, for the longest time, appeared at it and it was hardly ever readily available,” Rivera mentioned. “That yr, that spot grew to become available and my dad jumped on it.”
The initial house had just 30 seats, but as demand for Tacos Selene’s food grew, the small business was ready to increase into neighboring sq. footage. The Aurora restaurant can now accommodate 120 guests, as can the just one in Littleton, which opened about four decades in the past.
If you’re wanting to know why Tacos Selene is spelled in another way than Rivera’s identify, credit rating whoever processed the business’ first licensing and title paperwork for the typo.
Eli Imadali, Particular to The Denver Publish
AURORA, CO – MARCH 31, 2022: Carmen and Enedino González, spouses and co-entrepreneurs of Tacos Selene, sit for a portrait in their Aurora, Colorado restaurant on Thursday, March 31, 2022.
“It was such a course of action to get it changed that my dad was like, ‘You know, just leave it. Maybe you can adjust your title afterwards,’ ” Rivera recalled with a laugh.
The tacos below are the most significant attract, no matter if you are craving pineapple and pork pastor, barbacoa or tripe. Can not make up your thoughts? Rivera suggests having a taco plate so you can consider one particular of just about every, all served on corn tortillas and all set for dressing at the provide-you-salsa bar, which just not long ago returned right after a pandemic hiatus.
Tacos Selene also sells burritos, quesadillas and tortas, or sandwiches.
Rivera currently functions as a nurse and aids her parents out with the taco shop, but she and her spouse are hoping to sign up for the “thriving” family organization whole-time. They are at present scouting a area for a third cafe, possibly in Castle Rock, that they can operate like a Tacos Selene franchise – spelled with an “s,” Rivera verified. And why not, when you’ve just been named one of the very best taco places near Denver?
“They (my mothers and fathers) came from acquiring $20 in their pocket for a full month to the place they are now,” Rivera mentioned. “My father continue to to this day will work 16 to 17 hours a day, but he wouldn’t transform it for a detail. He’s so very pleased of every thing he’s performed. His family members, they’ve all witnessed him do the job so hard for it, and they are so happy.”